


i'll be quiet

by briarsrowan



Series: washing machine heart [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: ADHD, Childhood Trauma, F/M, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Medication, Self-Medication, Substance Abuse, Suicidal Ideation, Therapy, Title from a Mitski Song, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:41:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27085762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briarsrowan/pseuds/briarsrowan
Summary: Mom, would you wash my back?This once, and then we can forgetMom, am I still young?Can I dream for a few months more?...Percy and trauma.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Paul Blofis/Sally Jackson, Percy Jackson & Sally Jackson, Sally Jackson/Gabe Ugliano
Series: washing machine heart [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979938
Comments: 3
Kudos: 111





	i'll be quiet

**Author's Note:**

> CW: mentions of child abuse, ptsd, trauma symptoms, and medication  
> please take care of yourself and use your best judgement when reading.

_Mom, I'm tired  
_ _Can I sleep in your house tonight?_

Percy Jackson is twelve years old. He is alone, for the first night, in the Poseidon cabin and the walls are dark and suffocating. Poseidon, who, is still more of a vague idea than something Percy can truly believe is real. Percy is used to sleeping in new places, boarding school has taken care of that, but he is also used to roommates. To others breathing and tossing and talking in their sleep. Suddenly, fiercely, he misses Grover and wishes he were in the next bunk, but Grover is doing whatever he normally does at camp, and though he has been trying to see Percy he’s also, busy.

Percy tries to sleep, really, he does, but every time he drifts off, he hears the harpies outside, and thinks fleetingly, of Gabe, and then he is painfully awake again. Instead of sleeping that night, Percy sits with his back to the corner, blanket bunched up around him. Riptide is in his hand, still new and unfamiliar, but it makes him feel safer than anything else in this place has. His heart rises in his throat as he listens to harpies go by and tears well in his eyes.

He feels so small and all he wants is his Mom. He wants her to wrap her arms around him and tell him that its going to be alright, to run her fingers through his hair. He never wants her to let go. Tears run down his face faster now and his breathing picks up. Carefully he steadies it, panicking about the sound that it makes. He sobs absolutely silently, crying out wordlessly for his mother and scolding himself for being unable to handle this. Thinks it dramatic, thinks he is too old to cry for his mom.

But Percy is only twelve, his mother is gone, and the only person waiting for him in their home is Gabe Ugliano, which is worse than there being no one at all.

_Mom, is it alright_  
_If I stay for a year or two?_

Percy doesn’t drink.

He never plans to. He knows, like just about everyone knows, that some of the Hermes kids smuggle in alcohol, and that the Demeter kids sometimes grow weed and brew beer, but he ignores it. He doesn’t care what other people do, but he doesn’t want to see it. His mom had never asked, but he’d promised her he would never drink one particularly bad night. He’d promised her that he’d never be that kind of man. She had smiled at him and told him that he was a good kid, and even then Percy had been able to see the sadness in her eyes as she tucked him into bed, new bruises forming on them both.

So Percy Jackson doesn’t drink. He’s never had enough friends for this to be a problem, and once he’d made friends at camp he’d so often been off on quests that there had never been time, but now, he’s fifteen and at camp, stress is high for everyone, and the Still brothers invite him to a party.

He doesn’t say ‘I don’t drink’ though he thinks later he should have. He hesitates only for a moment before agreeing. He is sick of being scared, of the war, of everything, and he thinks maybe having fun and just being a teenager for once sounds nice. All Percy has ever wanted is to be normal.

The party starts great. He’s hanging out with the kids he knows he is about to die for and for a moment, its fun. The longer he stays though, the more people offer him drinks. Even Annabeth, who is usually so intent on being in control, has had a drink. She is not drunk, but she’s almost smiling, loose, and Percy’s heart leaps before it crashes as quickly as it went up.

These are the kids that he will die for, many of whom will die with him.

The next time Connor Stoll asks him to do shots he says yes and the campers cheer. Percy doesn’t know what he’s doing, not really, but he knows he’s supposed to drink it, and he knows this smell. For a moment, he almost puts it down, but then everyone is chatting around them and Connor winks at him and the grief tangling up his insides become unbearable and he downs the shot. It’s not as bad as he thought it would be, though it doesn’t taste good. Connor laughs at his face, but when Percy says, ‘another?’ He whoops and they go again.

An hour later Percy blacks out. No one notices, too far gone to notice that Percy is further gone than any of the rest of them. Annabeth goes back to her cabin early to rest, and the party migrates around the woods. Percy doesn’t follow them, slowly, he drifts away, not really knowing or thinking about where he’s going.

Connor Stoll sees him turn to leave and calls out, “leaving early Jackson?” He mocks good-naturedly.

“Beach,” is all Percy says.

Connor laughs, “Sons of Poseidon.”

Somehow Percy makes it to the beach. He is alone and at some point he has started weeping. He smells like cheap vodka and canned pineapple juice. He doesn’t have a drink in his hand anymore, but Riptide has found its way out of his pocket and into his hand. He waves the pen around, making lightsaber noises and laughing and crying at himself on the docks. He drops himself at the end of the dock, feet dangling into the water. Sobbing he uncaps Riptide and puts it down next to him.

He watches the moon over the water. It’s late now, the party is probably ending.

Percy is sad. There’s no where to go. He holds Riptide, turns it over in his hands.

The next morning, Percy wakes up on the beach. His hoodie’s sleeves are ripped and bloody. There are no scars on his arms, but Percy remembers vaguely sinking beneath the waves. His head pounds and it turns out, his mouth is literally full of sand. Percy smells the alcohol on himself, can still almost taste it. Immediately, he vomits. It’s still early, the sun is just coming up and the beach is empty. He hauls himself up in a frenzy and takes himself to the showers.

Percy scrubs and scrubs and the water steams his skin. He is red and exhausted and breathless and tears stream down his face. He has broken his promise. He turns the shower off, he is not clean, but he is suddenly too tired to stand. He throws out the bloody hoodie and rushes back to his cabin.

_Mom, I'll be quiet_  
_It would be just to sleep at night_  
_And I'll leave once I figure out  
_ _How to pay for my own life too_

The war is over and Percy is alive. He’s been sixteen for two weeks now, lived longer than he ever thought he would.

Camp is emptying out, many of those who are left are going home this year, longing to see mortal family and try to make up for lost time, if they can. Percy is one of just a few left. He’s still sitting at the Poseidon table, long after dinner. No one in sight. This evening he and Annabeth had a walk through the strawberry fields planned, and he can’t believe how lucky he is to have that to look forward to. For now though, Percy is taking in the stillness. He hasn’t stopped moving since… since he can’t remember when. Tomorrow he will go back home and see his mom. He will relax with her and with Paul and he will get to stop worrying, he thinks. It’s over.

Oh. It’s over.

Percy mulls this over, thinking and feeling less and less and just sitting, staring. His eyes unfocus and his hearing grows fuzzy. He does not panic, but he does not feel anything at all.

‘Sally! Get in here,’ he hears. There is screaming, distant, unintelligible.

Percy is up he is moving, following his mother’s voice full of rage. Gabe was supposed to be gone, but Percy was not there enough to realize this. Percy turns a corner, raises his sword-

“Percy?”

He blinks. Turns. It’s Annabeth, she’s starring at him, eyebrows knotted. He looks back at what he was doing, unsure when he had left the Poseidon table. The raspberry bush in front of him stares back. ‘What?’

“Are you ok?” Annabeth asks, stepping forward cautiously.

Percy frowns at her, confused by her caution before he notices Riptide in his hand. Quickly, he caps the sword. He shakes himself off, smiles at her, “I’m good.”

_Mom, would you wash my back?_  
_This once, and then we can forget_  
_And I'll leave what I'm chasing_  
_For the other girls to pursue_

Percy is eighteen. He has scars of all kinds all over his body, the freshest a set of stripes on his thighs that he intends to get rid of in the shower before anyone can notice, but that chaff against his jeans painfully. It is satisfying, almost. The thought makes him sick.

It’s raining because of course it is, and Percy is soaked. He carries his skate board as he hurries home, eager to warm up. As he crosses the street he looks up at the his mom’s apartment. (‘Home’ he reminds himself, and he hates that he has to). The lights are on, and in the window is Estelle, sitting on the counter top laughing. His mom is moving around the kitchen, a smile on her face.

Homesickness washes over him and then, jealousy. He quashes it as quickly as it comes.

He loves Estelle, she deserves the absolute best, but Percy misses this. Warmth and simplicity and being safe in his mothers arms, not knowing what else is out there. He barely remembers it, though he knows things must have been different, before Gabe.

He’s been thinking a lot about Gabe lately. Gabe, who is made of stone, who is gone forever and has left the world better for it. Gabe who smelled like alcohol and grease and smoke and shit and whose voice was gravely and harsh and whose voice still, after all these years, still surfaces in Percy’s nightmares.

Percy, who lately has been thinking about the smell of alcohol on his own breath, who cannot even be near it anymore without his stomach churning. Percy who is building other habits, no better or worse, but that do not have the same smell, and none of which are making him feel better. He does not feel bad for Gabe, does not even think maybe he understands him, but a part of him almost wonder, what made him like that.

Percy, who knows he will never be done, never be free.

Percy, who has always just wanted to be a normal boy.

Percy looks down, he digs out his keys and Percy goes home.

_Mom, am I still young?_  
_Can I dream for a few months more?_

**Author's Note:**

> no editing no beta we die like men  
> class of 2013 by mitski is one of those songs that without fail makes me sob.  
> -briars


End file.
